Europe’s largest budget airline Ryanair is getting a slight boost in sales this week after its CEO traded jabs with tech billionaire Elon Musk, who suggested buying the company to replace the CEO with someone named Ryan. The feud has continued online as the airline CEO rejected plans from one of Musk’s companies to add Wi-Fi on planes.
Musk and airline CEO Michael O’Leary called one another “idiots” as the pair’s feud took over social media Wednesday, seemingly out of nowhere, darting eyes to one anothers’ companies. O’Leary spoke to reporters in Dublin, Ireland, earlier that day and said nearly a year of deliberations to add Starlink devices on Ryanair planes ended after determining it wouldn’t be suitable for the company.
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Ryanair is the European Union’s largest airline, having flown 206.4 million passengers in 2025 on budget flights.
“Ryanair CEO is an utter idiot,” Musk wrote on X Friday in response to a post about O’Leary calling the tech mogul an idiot in a radio interview.
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Musk owns Starlink, a satellite internet company that has been used to provide people in remote areas with the ability to connect to the internet. He floated the idea on Jan. 16 — two days after the rejection — to buy the airline and replace O’Leary with a person actually named Ryan.
“I don’t quite know why he took such umbrage over it,” O’Leary said.
Ryanair, known for using humor to take jabs at critics, posted a statement on X that said Musk knew less about airline ownership rules than aircraft aerodynamics, and promoted a sale for “Elon and any other idiots on ‘X’.”
It is the European Union’s largest airline with about £13.9 billion, or $18.6 billion, in revenue and 205 million passengers for fiscal year 2025. The airline only has flights in Europe and North Africa.
The Irish CEO applauded Musk for helping the airline’s sales in the past week with the promotion and a free airline ticket.
“A free Ryanair ticket to thank him for the wonderful boost in publicity which has seen our bookings rise significantly,” O’Leary said. “They’re up about 2 or 3% in the last five days, which given our volumes is a very significant boost.”
No Starlinks on Ryanair
O’Leary admitted that he liked Starlink and its abilities, but said the systems would cost the company nearly £250 million a year, or $335 million, and cause up to a 2% fuel drag.
“We spend about 5.5 billion a year on fuel and therefore, it would increase our fuel bill by about 100-to-200 million,” O’Leary said, speaking in pounds. He’d be open to equipping the planes if Starlink picked up the costs of the fuel drag.
The company was in discussions with other satellite internet providers like Amazon, but O’Leary said he would only do it if those providers could pick up costs or be a major financial burden for Ryanair.
He added that despite Starlink’s perception of Ryanair’s customers, less than 10% of passengers would pay for Wi-Fi. The devices would also only be used for short flights, which O’Leary said average around an hour long, and would be provided complimentary to passengers.
About 5% of all passengers would pay up to £3 for the service, he said.
“Elon Musk apparently took great umbrage and resorted to insulting me on X at the weekend, calling me an idiot,” O’Leary said.
Musk ponders buying Ryanair despite EU regulations
The two continued the feud as Musk replied to the airline on X, asking how much it would cost him to buy the company.
“How much would it cost to buy you,” he asked. “I really want to put a Ryan in charge of Ryan Air. It is your destiny.”
Musk made a poll Monday that asked people if he should follow through with the plan, with about 76.5% of the 947,831 votes saying to do so. It wouldn’t be the first company he plotted to take over after he bought Twitter with an unsolicited bid in 2022, rebranded the company, and clashed often with executives about other changes. Paramount Skydance is attempting to do the same with Warner Bros. Discovery with a $108.4 billion bid over Netflix’s $82.7 billion deal, according to CNN.
However, regulations in the European Union put a stop to Musk’s plan.
The European Union mandates that the majority ownership of an EU-based airline (at least 51%) must be located within the union’s member countries, making him ineligible to wholly own and vote in the company. Post Brexit, it also meant United Kingdom citizens no longer counted toward the 51%. It noted that the U.S. has stricter regulations, mandating an airline to not have its voting shares exceed 25%.
O’Leary said he’d welcome Musk as an investor and said it would be more beneficial than Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, now rebranded as X.
Not backing down, Musk escalated his insults to calling the airline CEO a slur used against disabled people.
“I take no insult at all of being called an idiot or a t—t as anybody with teenage children would know you’re frequently called an idiot and a t—t at home,” O’Leary said. “I don’t need to go outside to be insulted.”
